posted
Here is the opening 13 lines of one of my current WIPs, Baudwynn and the Fool of Cleft, a story which blends satirical and high fantasy elements. The POV character here is Jory, the titular fool, an incorrigibly lazy and irresponsible teenager. Jory will be mentored by Baudwynn the Incompetent, a young wizard who while cynical, iconoclastic and virulently antiestablishment is actually far from incompetent. Rather than cure Jory of his idle ways Baudwynn encourages them. It turns out Baudwynn has his reasons: sometimes what's wisdom for a wise man can be folly for a fool.
That's what you would get from the blurb, which I have not written yet.
INITIAL VERSION:
quote: Jory was up with the first blush of light above the high eastern moors. When he opened the door of the cottage to the pre-dawn chill he could still make out the pale Milky Way stretching down to the dark seas off Daneshead. A cool, mildewy breeze rolled down off the moor, whistling softly in the thatched eaves of the little house. From below came the low, distant boom of unseen surf.
“Jory!” a high, hoarse voice croaked from inside. “Jory what are you doing?”
Jory turned. In the dark he could barely make out a darker shadow approaching. “I don't want to be late today,” he said, without saying exactly what it was he didn't want to be late for.
“Picture you up in the manor,” Old Aliss said. “Waiting on all those fine people. If only my poor Tomas was here.”
FIRST REVISION:
quote:Jory opened the cottage door to the pre-dawn chill. The Moon had set, and in the west the Milky Way stretched down to the dark waters off Daneshead. Above the high eastern moors, a slender band of ultramarine twilight had washed out the stars. A night breeze off those moors whistled fitfully over the low, distant boom of surf, and carried a faint scent of wild thyme and wet.
Behind him Old Aliss stirred. “Jory!” she croaked in her high, hoarse voice. “Jory where are you going?”
He turned back to the cottage's warm, smoky interior. By the dim ember-light he could just make out his foster-mother approaching. ...
SECOND REVISION
quote:The fire in the hearth had burned down but the cottage was still warm and smoky. Jory turned in his bed; by the dim orange ember-light he saw that his foster-mother had pulled her straw pallet onto the hearthrug. Old Aliss didn't intend to put more logs onto dying fire, so it must be near daybreak.
He sat up carefully so that the ropes supporting his featherbed wouldn't creak. Jory reached under the bed for his clothes, only to come up with the wool doublet they'd given him to wear while serving as a page at the manor. Further exploration turned up matching breeches, a set of detachable linen sleeves, white worsted knee socks and a pair of round-toed shoes. His threadbare tunic and ragged trousers were nowhere to be found.
posted
Mostly well-crafted composition, few overt grammar faults or inadvertent missed contexture. However, a fragment of or a whole narrative posted for workshop assumes on the part of responders that guidance for clarification and strength enhancements are open for consideration. In any case, a responder exercises editing skills as much as a writer may or may not benefit from responses; benefits usually accrue more to responder than to writer for responses.
First word, first sentence, a name, probably the scene viewpoint agonist's name, not much character development from a name. If Jory is an idle fool, why does he timely wake up at predawn for an appointment at the manor house? Maybe he stayed awake all night, many idle fools would, wake late otherwise.
The first paragraph then develops setting introductions, a minor event or two, and an otherwise idylic mise-en-scéne backdrop, though the ambience intended is not clearly atmospheric effect. Pretty though no overt attitude reaction to the sensory stimuli expressed by narrator or agonist. The scene could benefit from closer narrative distance, as experienced from internal to Jory's or the scene's perspective and not generically as if from an external narrator's perspective.
Narrative distance is open, a practical strategy for a long fiction if multiple viewpoints are intended or if the narrator reports a journalistic semi-objective account, after-the-fact-all-is-known drama. However, the narrator identity should then be developed by holding a strong attitude (emotional) toward subjects of the drama; in other words, an at-times overt, at-times covert narrator. Otherwise, and not mutually exclusive, a viewpoint agonist should hold a strong, if not the strongest attitude, especially emotional responses to sensory stimuli.
The events overall are quiet, though do lead to a want of timely arrival at the manor, not much problem development, which could come from stronger character development, especially that Jory is an idle fool about to meet his future. Premables that tell me a focal agonist's basic nature and behavior don't show me what I prefer to interpret myself, and I believe readers generally. Stronger character introduction development warranted.
Quiet starts are not in and of themselves slow starts. Quiet starts, though should as a best practice set up the action to come. Nor per se are quiet starts of necessity imminent high dudgeon, routine interruptions. They only require implication all is about to take a dramatic turn. Jory's experiences to come at the manor house almost get there, through Aliss's proud her son rises in station. However, set up that idle fool Jory, of course, won't rise as perhaps Aliss believes and Jory hopes he will.
What else might develop Jory's basic nature and behavior as an idle fool? His thoughts and reactions to the setting. He's the "man of the house." How might his character develop from the setting? Neglected home and premises that cause him problems, for one, that he's aware of but not concerned about. In addition to, say, staying awake all night so he won't miss the appointment. Also, due to the latter, his thoughts and speech are off kilter, his actions uncharacteristically clumsy even for him. Show he's an idle fool through use of events and setting details, reactions to them, and his emotions, thoughts, and speech.
Emotional disequilibrium presents from a pretty, idylic setting, empathy-worthy from envy and exotic setting. Though an idyl vaguely implies an upsest routine is imminent. Curiosity--limited development of that reader effect, except from the preamble. More anon. If Jory were portrayed as an idle fool from the start, curiosity might arise from a humor effect first. What new farcical misadventures does this idle fool stumble into next?
"When" second sentence, first word, starts the sentence off with an exclusive narrator perspective looking inward from outside the scene at Jory, continued by "he opened the door," and "he could still make out," etc. Tell lecture. Overt narrator perspective need not look in as though into a television screen with a voiceover soundtrack. A blend of reflected agonist viewpoint and narrator report inverts a perspective from external to the scene to internal to the scene.
For illustration only:
//Daylight blushes smeared the eastern moors. West, the Milky Way smudge still stabbed down into black lead seas off Daneshead. Ugly early blessed time, Jory thought. Pre-dawn chill--cold as a boar's snout up your backside. A cool, mildewy breeze snuck down off the moor, whistled shrilly through stray thatch loose beneath eaves of the cottage. Distant low booms, far off surf thumped and sizzled, stirred by squalls across the straight: about as quiet a morning as a taproom rumble.//
Though my voice and diction, exaggerated for effect, minor creative vision imposition too, for character development and closer narrative distance example purposes. Maybe the S sibilance is overdone for mise-en-scéne "outdoor breeze" aural atmospheric effect.
Awkward, long dialogue attribution tag, calls undue attention to it, not an invisible "Old Aliss said" tag: "a high, hoarse voice croaked from inside." Does Jory not recognize the voice is Old Aliss's? The narrator probably doesn't. Readers don't, still don't after the tag. If the aural sensation and how it characterizes Aliss are important, how would Jory perceive the sound? //Old Aliss's high, hoarse throat croaked from in the house.// for example.
Punctuation fault: "Jory[, or .] [W]hat are you doing?"
Narrator static tell: "Jory turned."
"In the _dark_[,] he could barely make out a _darker_ shadow approaching."
Second and third "dark" and similar "darker" used in close succession to "dark seas" without distinguishable amplification contexture to make them fresh. Prefatory dependent clauses warrant a comma separation. "Barely" weak, static adverb. Strong, dynamic adverbs express attitude commentary, especially emotional attitude.
The preamble's last line enticed me more than the start fragment. "sometimes what's wisdom for a wise man can be folly for a fool." Artful curiosity arousal. Strength-wise, the narrator's viewpoint stands out, though also a narrative and aesthetic distance shortcoming for me. A not-too slow start for a novel-length fiction, though, again, more agonist viewpoint show and less narrator summary and explanation lecture tell draws readers into a scene's reality imitation and allows more time until events, emotional equilibrium upset, routine interruption, dramatic conflict, and dramatic complication development barrel a narrative along its rollercoaster track.
posted
Overall, a bucolic, easy opening dealing with the minutiae of Jory's awakening, which is interrupted by a disembodied voice asking him what he's doing. Then that same voice is complaining that he isn't like Tomas, even if he is going to be waiting on the high and mighty in the manor.
Now, personally, I don't have any issue with a languid opening; they are excellent for introducing and showing character traits rather than 'telling' the reader about them. Like extrinsic, I feel this is a missed opportunity here.
I also have some specific criticisms:
Personally, I don't like beginning a story with character's name; I have nothing to hang it on to. A suggestion: Waking with the first blush of light above the high eastern moors, Jory . . .
. . . stretching down to the dark seas off Daneshead. Is Daneshead a town, a port, or a promontory?
Not certain what a mildewy breeze is.
“Jory!” a high, hoarse voice croaked from inside. I agree with extrinsic about the overly long tag. Best practice is to limit tags to he said/she said, with some exceptions. A suggestion: if you wish to characterise the voice as old and feeble, consider something like: Behind him, Jory heard Old Aliss wheezing and muttering . . .
Is Old Aliss male or female?
Finally, I do like the use of the small mystery about why and what Jory didn't want to be late for.
I have a who, a where, and a hint at a dramatic want or complication. What I'm missing is a why and a how. But, in a novel, I wouldn't expect to get everything in the first page or two, let alone 13 lines.
Personally, I would spend more time developing Jory's character traits--what makes him a fool, if he is the fool of the title?
Phil.
Added later:
Unlike extrinsic, the narrative distance doesn't bother me too much, especially this early in the story.
[ September 28, 2014, 07:38 AM: Message edited by: Grumpy old guy ]
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"Mildewy" refers to a certain smell you get coming off of cool, damp soil in open places. It's not unlike the smell of a musty basement, but sharper and less septic, almost midway between a wet basement and and acetone.
I've been researching that smell and looking for a compact way to describe it. The odor is caused by volatile organic compounds (alcohols, esters, ketones etc.) generated by bacteria and fungi. Fungi and bacteria are responsible for the smell of a boreal forest in mud season; heathland after a heavy rain; stagnant water in a millpond; but all these odors are subtly different. How would someone without a background in chemistry describe the smell of cool morning air coming off a wet heath? Any ideas?
As always extrinsic's critique is impressive and it'll take some time for me to work my way through it. I appreciate the effort, and I definitely agree on the elided dialog tag. It makes things sound more mysterious than they need to be.
A few things to note. Terms like "incompetent", "lazy" and "fool" need to be taken advisedly, since this is satire and people in the story consistently use these labels in a self-serving manner. Baudwynn is called "incompetent" because he declines to make himself useful to his betters. Jory is a "fool" because his opinions aren't constrained by social convention. Jory's teacher Dr. Runtspell is called "wise" because he's conscientious, unimaginative and deferential to authority.
When I started writing I used an assertive, opinionated narrator, influenced by Mark Twain and Terry Pratchett. Recently I've been experimenting with a narrator who uses sensory impression to draw the reader into the scene before leading him to the POV character's thoughts, feelings and internal conflict.
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I too practice sensation reported in third person and agonist reaction thoughts, speech, and actions in first or third person. Transition methods between them challenge and stretch my skill set. The paragraph sample illustration above--though many readers are oblivious to third-person danger-close narrative distance, read and interpret third person literally, open narrative distance. I strive for third person read and interpreted ironically, figuratively as first person transference, which spans audiences for both. Narratives interpretable both ways separately and together appeal most to me.
Features of that narrative voice include stream of consciousness methods, notably internal perceptions of external stimuli reflected by improvised on-the-fly discourse; in other words, psychic access similar to first person, though the viewpoint motility of third person; free indirect and direct discourse, and few and short, invisible attribution tags, viewpoint agonist's discourse least tagged, if at all; dialogue and thought attributed by action descriptions wherever practical, varied sentence start, mid sentence, and sentence end discourse attribution and action tags; and regular tagged indirect and direct discourse and tagged actions for characters observed by a viewpoint agonist, a viewpoint agonist's actions attributed least, by their more reflex than praxis reactions.
Though first person, Tobias Wolff's This Boy's Life uses sensory stimuli to strong effect that pulls readers into a scene, for agonists to be drawn to and react to as well, where I first noted that method.
Grumpy old guy's suggested "Behind him, Jory heard" example above is tagged indirect discourse, "Jory heard," the tag, mediated too directly by the narrator for those self-imposed rules.
The aromas of a coastal fresh-water bog I now as peaty, earthy, musty, boggy, moldy, yeasty. Every bog exudes a unique aroma though. Those descriptors may be too generic, and problematic and nondefinite from their Y suffix.
A high coastal heath smells different from a low one, wetter ones different from drier ones. Acidic water of varied pHs influences their decay processes to more and less anerobic, less aerobic degrees. Maritime bogs at low tide smell distinctly of hydrogen sulfide's rotten eggs and subtler iodine. A sandy maritime bog at low tide disturbed by rough seas smells sharply acrid of salted (iodine) peat.
A nearby high fresh-water, coastal bog, somewhat dry and sandy, heath and moor like, smells sweeter, a hint of sugar and starch fermentation, less acrid than a maritime bog.
Perhaps the rhetorical figure metalepsis may serve: "Reference to something by means of another thing that is remotely related to it, either through a farfetched causal relationship, or through an implied intermediate substitution of terms. Often used for comic effect through its preposterous exaggeration. A metonymical substitution of one word for another which is itself figurative.
"Pallid death "The effect of death is to make the body pale. Ascribing this effect to death itself as an adjective here is an example of metalepsis.
"He is such a lead foot. "This means, 'he drives fast' but only through an implied causal chain: Lead is heavy, a heavy foot would press the accelerator, and this would cause the car to speed.
"In Laurence Sterne's novel, Tristram Shandy, Tristram blames his troubled life and character (the effect) on his parents' ill-timed conception of him (the remote cause)—a rather comical and extended example of metalepsis." (Brown Silva Rhetoricae)
For example:
//A chill, acrid breeze as like a mildewed waistcoat rolled down off the moor.//
Similar to William Gibson's Neuromancer opening line. "The sky above the port was the color of television--a dead channel." Exquisite metalepsis from the comparison of sky to television, both visual, the ubiquitous boob tube its techno-dystopia, and a dead channel the life-sustaining sky is.
That first sentence seems redundant to me because of what comes in the following sentences ("pre-dawn" and "moor"), so I'd delete it, and use "Jory" instead of your first "he" ("When Jory...").
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I agree, Kathleen. Having considered it, it makes it a much stronger opening and with more room to build 'atmospherics' into the narrative if so desired.
Rather than hooking the reader with a problem or riddle, I'm attempting an opening that entices him to picture himself in the scene.
My intended recipe for this effect is:
(1) sensory orientation (direction x sensation, e.g., outside = chilly, inside = warm) (2) keeping language simple and direct, yet specific and precise (3) use of multiple senses (sight, sound, smell, nocioception) (4) minimizing anything that requires interpretive effort by the reader (e.g. metaphor, irony, metonymy, etc.)
This is particularly tricky with smell. What I initially wanted is the wind coming off the moor to smell of heather, but I suspect most people would have no idea what that smells like. It doesn't really matter what the precise smell is, it has to be evocative and make sense in context, so I initially tried "mildew". Here I decided to try "wild thyme" on the theory that the reader can head to his spice rack if he isn't sure. I use "wet" to metonymically evoke both cold in the nostrils and mildewy, but if that fails the reader still has thyme to fall back on.
Color can be tricky too. People know "red" from "blue" but not necessarily "scarlet" from "crimson". I wanted a precise term for the deep blue color of twilight that would sound evocative even if the reader wasn't precisely sure what shade it referred to. I considered "Persian blue" or "ultramarine"; they seemed roughly equal to me so I randomly chose "ultramarine".
I'm going for a rhythm and tone that is just slightly more overblown than conversational without sounding like an oration by a rider of Rohan. This is supposed to hint that the scene is magical, not commonplace.
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MattLeo, indigo is a deep blue/black and I'd think it suitable as that darkest moment before the dawn colour.
Phil.
Having now read what you'd written, I see what colour you're trying for but I'm not certain how to describe it. A sort of washed-out darkness between blue and black. Not solid, rather translucent.
Edited after some thought:
I spent 15 years some time ago working in the wee small hours and watching the sun rise in all seasons and manner of weather. I had to hit the search function in my brain and go back almost 20 years to remember that, the moment just before the sun breaches the horizon, the border between the black/blue of night and the pale dawn is, in fact, white, not blue. It is only as the sun's first light, usually a pale gold in summer, interacts with the atmosphere that a slowly deepening shade of blue permeates the sky.
Phil.
[ October 02, 2014, 03:44 AM: Message edited by: Grumpy old guy ]
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posted
Mise-en-scéne starts largely introduce an atmospheric effect. They typically have no central characters to speak of, no events either, are more or less stasis portraits, and are attractive because they transform emotional equilibrium from their emotional atmospheric effects.
They draw readers into a setting from a distant perspective that closes toward nearer perspectives or through another organizational principle: from a height to a ground level, from outside to inside, lesser detail to greater detail, low or no antagonism to escalated antagonism, from a mob to an individual of the mob, etc., or, less often for scene entrance transitions, vice versa, which work for scene exit transitions.
As the second version is, two minor events in which two characters are present nest a mise-en-scéne stasis portrait. E.M. Forester's A Passage to India opens with a mise-en-scéne stasis setting and milieu introduction before event and character introductions begin. The mise-en-scéne start introduces the setting's antagonal influences: its agency. The opening is a vignette in the literary sense--a setting portrait. A transition at the end of the mise-en-scéne introduction sets up for event and character introductions. The mise-en-scéne introduction uses the rhetorical scheme antithesis to artful effect: describes a circumstance by describing what the circumstance is not.
No excerpt, the Forester novel is under copyright, though available at archive.org.
For me, diction, syntax, content and organization, craft, and voice shortcomings of both versions equally cause a speed bump sequence.
For examples, the two minor events nest the mise-en-scéne development, which should start the narrative or otherwise should express the viewpoint agonist's sensation and reaction sequences.
The setting details are confused such that they miss causal relationships that authenticate a narrative. A dawn breeze blows landward, upslope, onshore, toward this one's sunrise, not seaward, downslope, offshore, away from this one's sunrise. Land cools and warms faster than seas. Otherwise, during calm weather, coastal winds dwindle and die about a half hour before dawn and dusk then build as the time of day's agency develops. Pre-dawn and pre-dusk winds are calm to nonexistent and stay calm for about an hour.
If the moorland is east of the croft, the sea is west. Difficult to interpret that the Moon set where the Milky Way meets the sea when east moorland details are leavened in among west sky and sea details. From the moor to the sea to the moor to the sea to the moor to the cottage interior--Jory's head must whiplash around like a Sunday driver.
The run-on sentence describing the aural moor and sea sensations creates a difficult image, the improbable easterly breeze from the moor _over_ the distant western surf.
Indigo is a first dawn or last dusk cloudless horizon twilight color. Nextmost is azure.
Thyme or heather are problematic olfactory descriptors. How does the narrator or Jory perceive thyme smells? Sharp, spicy, pungent, not as spicy as rosemary though similar, pine needle-like, mint-like, water mint, menthol mint, spearmint, peppermint?
Heather is generally unfamiliar. Thyme may grow in stands on a heath or moorland's fringes, wet drainage or dry areas. Same with parsely, sage, and rosemary. Dominant moorland plant life are hardy dry land scrub shrubs, grasses, sedges, and rushes. Wintertime, all moorland plants are dormant and rainfall has washed away any lingering foliage aromas. A hint of thyme carried on the improbable easterly wind would mean disturbance of a thyme stand's stems by wildlife or other beings.
Unnecessary past perfect tense twice. Verb-adverb hyperbaton once. Several dependent clause and phrase hyperbaton mixes and emphasis inversions.
I feel the second version rushes toward a scene, attempts to set a scene, attempts to meld agonist viewpoint with narrator, mixes organization methods, though results by default in pure overt narrator to the exclusion of agonist perspective and voice, and, though substantially revised, is an insubstantial revision.
Consider either a mise-en-scéne introduction of a narrator and narrative voice external to the setting or an event, setting, character introduction scene internal to the agonist. Both mixed together doesn't work for me.
posted
For me, the second draft is the weaker of the two.
My reasons? Well, in considering your second draft, I took into account your recipe for the mood you wanted to achieve; and that set the alarm bells ringing.
I would simply ask the question I seem to be asking a lot of people lately: What do you want the opening scene to do, and why?
You want to set the mood and to, "I'm attempting an opening that entices him to picture himself in the scene." As written, this is exactly what it doesn't do, in my opinion. It is too contrived, too artificial in its setting and environmental descriptions. I'd go for a simpler, poetic approach, eschewing recipes and formulae.
For example, and pretty much off the top of my head:
When he opened the door of their small, stone-walled, thatched cottage, Jory drew his tattered robe more tightly around his shoulders in a vain attempt to defend himself against the morning chill rolling down off the eastern moors. The air, crisp and cold, smelled faintly of thyme and orange blossom and the damp of early spring. . .
posted
Extrinsic -- The scene here draws on many summers spent in an unimproved seaside campground. There were no sanitary hookups, so to answer a call of nature you had to leave your trailer and pad across the campground, past the flag, to the campground toilets. So you could say I'm intimately acquainted with the early morning shift from offshore to onshore breezes.
The scene is pretty much taken unembellished from experience, right down to seeing the Milky Way in the sky along with the first indications of twilight. Even the wind direction was something I'd take note of when I passed the flag. The only think I really tinkered with was the smell, which was a mix of subtle pine forest and saltmarsh.
I wouldn't claim that the shift in wind happened there like clockwork, or that it happens on the same schedule everywhere else. Local geography and weather matters, as you can readily confirm by looking at the hourly wind direction records from coastal weather stations (which I did before writing the scene to check my recollection -- I'm kind of a research fetishist). Most, but not all stations show a strong diurnal pattern in wind direction, but it's not at all consistent either within or between locations.
As for the Moon, we can only assume it sets in the west.
I get that you find the detail overwhelming and poorly organized, and that's my fault. But the level of detail here is not something a real person on the scene couldn't process in a fraction of a second. I'm attempting to unpack that instant of observation without extending it into a momentum-killing set-piece, but evidently I've fallen between two chairs. I'm not sure exactly what you think I should do to correct this, so feel free to rewrite; but be aware the rewrite you offered above is pretty much diametically opposed to what I'm attempting.
I don't want the narrator's personality prominently stamped on the opening paragraph, nor do I want the reader to feel that he's in Jory's head looking out through Jory's eyes -- yet. I have nothing against either of these approaches, but I guess you might say I'm aiming for an intermediate narrative distance, where the reader is in the scene with the character, but isn't required to identify with him yet.
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//The Moon was long set and the Milky Way stretched down to the dark western waters off Daneshead, the distant boom of surf. Above the eastern moors, an azure ribbon washed out the stars. Night's lingered breezes fitfully whispered, carried down from the headland scents of wild thyme, heath, dew.
Pre-dawn chill roused him from the early watch. Behind, Old Aliss stirred. “Jory!” her shrill voice croaked. “Jory, where are you?”
He turned back to the cottage's smoky hearth. Backlit by dim ember light, his foster-mother approached.//
I suggest prolong the mise-en-scéne start a few more lines to take in the house yard and cottage, and set up the transition.
Your opening paragraph is a bit more, let's say "cinematic" than I'm looking for; I want to put the reader *next* to Jory rather than pulling in from the "long shot". But your suggestion of starting the narration a few minutes earlier to set up the shot is a valuable and practrical one I think. Maybe have the camera follow over Jory's shoulder, and then open up the scene when Jory opens the door.
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posted
For less cinematic effect and closer narrative distance, invert the order from far way first to close by first of Jory's reflected sensory perceptions of the house yard, perhaps from a small open cottage window, maybe a leaded casement window. Maybe he wants a breath of fresh air after the night's smoky smother.
A jump transition after Jory notes the far away Milky Way then comes from Old Aliss's speech, no need for a transition setup that way because her call interrupts his reflections.
Also, perhaps add emotional texture reactions to his sensory perceptions in order to develop the mystical texture. Emotional texture revision is usually best practice last, before a final proofread.
posted
I've done a second revision, rolling the start of the scene back a few minutes so we can follow Jory out of the house. It changes the feel of the opening, because showing this particular character in his home necessarily means letting the satire cat poke its whiskers out of the bag.
I think a lot of readers won't see what's going on, but not many here, I think.
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Read The Writer's Chronicle October/November 2014 today. One article cites a Flannery O'Conner quote from 1969. O'Conner noted writer's conferences she read narratives for critique from ambitious writers spoke with the same and only one voice, regardless of who and where the characters were from and where the writers were from, the same language that came out of a television set. O'Conner's best known short story: "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," available online.
The third version reads of television language. The narrative voice also could as easily be first person, most notable from the character's excess self-involvment in the action. Or from a different approach, the narrator's excess mediation of the action.
"_The_ fire _in the hearth_ _had burned_ down _but_ the cottage was _still_ warm and smoky. _Jory turned_ _in his bed_; by the _dim orange ember-light he saw that_ his foster-mother _had pulled_ her straw pallet onto the hearthrug. Old Aliss _didn't intend_ to put more logs onto _[the]_ dying fire, _so_ _it_ must be near daybreak.
_He sat up carefully_ _so that_ the _ropes supporting_ his _featherbed_ _wouldn't_ creak. _Jory reached_ under the bed for his clothes, _only_ _to come up_ with the wool doublet _they'd given_ him to wear _while serving_ as a page at the manor. _Further_ exploration _turned up_ _matching_ breeches, _a set of detachable_ linen sleeves, white worsted knee socks[,] and a pair of _round-toed_ shoes. His threadbare tunic and ragged trousers were _nowhere_ _to be found_."
Problematic televeision language above bracketed with underscores.
quote:Originally posted by extrinsic: O'Connor noted writer's conferences she read narratives for critique from ambitious writers spoke with the same and only one voice, regardless of who and where the characters were from and where the writers were from, the same language that came out of a television set.
I can't even parse the above sentence, so while I'm sure your meaning might do me a world of good, I can't quite make out what that meaning is. Are you saying the narrator's voice is bland? I did try to dial back on that in the revision.
What's wrong with "featherbed", which you appear to have flagged as a solecism? If I understood why that was a problem perhaps I might understand our point better.
By the way, of course I know who Flannery O'Conner was.
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I paraphrased O'Conner's quote because it's copyrighted. Many narratives she read for critique purposes at writer's conferences used television language. Television language's monotony used for ambitious writer prose was ubiquitous forty years ago, not to mention presently. O'Conner's point is the writers emulated television's monotonous speech rather than imitated realities of their observable real-world experiences.
"Featherbed" is a verb or adjective; feather bed is the noun.
Also, if Jory sleeps on a feather tick over rope springs of a simple, low, four-post-and-beam bed, he's decidedly well-off high society-wise, even a quill feather tick, let alone a down feather tick. Pole-spring bed frames were also middle to high end. A rough, raw sheep wool "felt rug" laid on a reed mat over a dirt floor at night and rolled up in the morning is more apropos of his humble station, as implied by a threadbare tunic and ragged trousers.
Old Aliss's straw pallet, I assume a "straw tick," is on the middle to high society end. Woven rush (reed) pallet, yes, then a raw felt rug.
posted
I'm confused. I thought you wanted a longer narrative distance and in this latest revision you seem to have closed the gap so much that, as extrinsic pointed out, it could be read in first person.
I'm also wondering about the element of satire that I appear to be overlooking. The second paragraph could be the beginning of a satirical observation about station, clothing and propriety, but I don't see it yet.
Given the three versions, I'm still trying to discern what it is you want this opening to do.
I don't necessarily agree with extrinsic's take on television language, but this last version has lost all the poetry, even if it was minimal, of the first draft.
Oh, according to my limited research, most Anglo-Saxon beds were of wood frame and rope 'spring' construction.
quote:Originally posted by extrinsic: O'Connor noted writer's conferences she read narratives for critique from ambitious writers spoke with the same and only one voice, regardless of who and where the characters were from and where the writers were from, the same language that came out of a television set.
I can't even parse the above sentence, so while I'm sure your meaning might do me a world of good, I can't quite make out what that meaning is.
Uh, doi!?
Sorry, my thought process turned to felt from a low sugar crisis onset while I wrote that sentence.
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Extrinsic -- I thought it wasn't up to your usual standards of cogency. I hope you're feeling better.
Phil -- I changed the style because it wasn't working for people. That's the point of feedback. I changed the rhetorical and narrative style to see if a prosier opening worked better. So I'm glad you caught that even if the effect wasn't to your taste. The plan is to see if deploying the more flowery language a few paragraphs in works better.
I also had to change the narrative style because starting a story with a character waking up is a cliche. There's no interest in reading about someone getting out of bed and pulling his pants on unless you make a point with those actions. So I decided to deploy a little satire.
While I do occasionally flirt with parody, in this case I mean "satire" in the sense holding up vices and foibles to ridicule. What I'm showing here is Jory's unexamined sense of entitlement. He doesn't get up and tend the fire through the night, he lets his elderly foster-mother do that for him. He sleeps in a bed and she sleeps on the floor. She lays his clothes out for him too, although there's a bit of passive aggression going on here as well. This unquestioning attitude toward the sacrifices made by others on their behalf is characteristic of children, people of high social standing, and fairy tale heroes.
Many people won't notice Jory's attitude in this little snippet; possibly most. But that's OK. Rather than explaining who Jory is up front, I plan to build up a composite picture of his character as the story progresses.
quote: Originally posted by MattLeo: Phil -- I changed the style because it wasn't working for people. That's the point of feedback.
Apart from an insightful contribution by KDW, the only people who have provided feedback that I’m aware of are extrinsic and myself. Far be it from me to put words into extrinsic’s mouth, so I won’t, but from my own POV, I have had no problem with the narrative distance in either of the first two incarnations of this opening. My issues were, for the most part, confined to what I would call an imprecise use of language.
I could have said lazy writing, but that would immediately get your hackles up. If you re-read what I said, all I was asking for was some clearer setting descriptors, with perhaps a poetic lilt, along with some particularity about places, people, smells and objects.
As a purely personal observation, it seems to me that if a writer makes such a dramatic change to an opening by radically shortening, or lengthening, the narrative distance, or changing the character POV, then the writer does not yet have a crystal clear idea of what the scene has to accomplish and how to go about it. Choosing the right words to use to achieve that desired result is the last step in the process. Just my 2¢ worth.
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Phil -- You shouldn't read uncertainty into a radical rewrite. I often rewrite short passages to check on my thinking about earlier drafts.
I appreciated your rewrite of the opening paragraph by the way. I thought it was quite good, although it's not the effect I'm looking for. One of my aims for the first draft was to avoid a uniform concentration of detail spread throughout the scene. So I tried to start with a single moment, closely observed but for only four or five sentences, then proceed with much less description until the next moment closely observed.
Why?
I've been reading a lot of classic, pre WW2 science fiction. Many of those stories are so diagesis-heavy they feel more like capsule summaries of their plots rather than actual stories. This style has advantages and disadvantages. You cover a lot of narrative ground quickly, but it can get tedious for the reader providing all the details of scenes and action himself.
I noticed in the best of these stories that often it's just one or two striking details that get your imagination through them -- the tunnels in TUMITHAK OF THE CORRDIORS for example, which inspired Asimov's CAVES OF STEEL. It occurred to me that I might harness this effect on a scene-by-scene basis by varying the concentration of detail as the scene unfolds.
So the idea is that I give you a vivid picture of Jory at his starting point, then when I have Jory walking in the growing light down to the harbor your imagination is primed to supply most of the specific details.
The idea is to achieve a certain level of sensory immediacy while conserving reader effort.
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quote: The fire in the hearth had burned down but the cottage was still warm and smoky. Jory turned in his bed; by the dim orange ember-light he saw that his foster-mother had pulled her straw pallet onto the hearthrug. Old Aliss didn't intend to put more logs onto dying fire, so it must be near daybreak.
He sat up carefully so that the ropes supporting his featherbed wouldn't creak. Jory reached under the bed for his clothes, only to come up with the wool doublet they'd given him to wear while serving as a page at the manor. Further exploration turned up matching breeches, a set of detachable linen sleeves, white worsted knee socks and a pair of round-toed shoes. His threadbare tunic and ragged trousers were nowhere to be found.
I'll just comment on this opening.
I made a similar comment on Phil's opening, but I'll repeat myself here. The writing is mostly fine, and I'd give the prose another paragraph or two before making a decision to read further. Right now, it's not so much that nothing much is happening. This is the opening of a novel, it seems, and you have ample room to build up your narrative. My problem is that not only does it seem like nothing is happening, but also there's nothing particularly interesting to compel me to read further. Someone named Jory wakes up and sees that a fire is dying in a hearth. Again, because the writing is smooth, I'd read more. But just this by itself isn't exactly interesting, or compelling, and if there isn't some type of hook in at least the first page, I'd probably put down the novel and move on to something else.
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